The action-oriented approach and case study method in management studies

Although the case study method has become increasingly popular in management studies, it does not always seem to be properly understood: researchers have not fully clarified for themselves the scientific approach they are using, although it greatly controls the realization of a study. This article focuses on action-oriented or hermeneutic case studies. The subjectivist nature of this approach and its effect on the conduct of a case study are stressed, in order to distinguish it from its methodological antithesis, the nomothetical case study. Certain hierarchical relations between the relevant subjectivist social science assumptions are suggested as a further way of helping researchers to internalize the essentially actorcentric nature of action-oriented (hermeneutic) case studies.     

A synthesis of the macroeconomic approaches to exchange rate determination

The paper develops a general model with the goods, money, domestic and foreign bond, and labor markets. The special assumptions needed to generate the predictions of the different approaches from the model are found. It turns out that the assumption of perfect capital mobility essentially generates the monetarist predictions, and perfect monetary sterilization by the central bank at a fixed interest rate the predictions of the elasticity-absorption approach. The approaches turn out to be independent, rather than conflicting parts of the general model, each approach abstracting from what the other is analyzing. This is technically done by dichotomizing the general model, the monetarists making the money market equation, and the Keynesians the goods market and balance payments equations the independent ones. While the Keynesian, monetarist, and short-term portfolio balance approaches differ in their policy regime assumptions, the long-run portfolio balance approach differs in its equilibrium condition, by constraining the trade balance to equilibrium.     

Worker inflow,outflow, and churning

Linked employer–employee data from Finnish business sector is used in analysing worker turnover. The data set is an unbalanced panel with over 219?000 observations in 1991–97. The churning (excess worker turnover), worker inflow, and worker outflow rates are explained by plant and employee characteristics. The probabilities of observing non-zero churning, inflow, and outflow rates increase with plant size. The magnitudes of the non-zero churning and inflow rates depend positively on size, but the magnitude of outflow rate depends negatively on size. High-wage plants have low turnover; plants with large within-plant variation in wages have high turnover. Average tenure of employees has a negative impact on turnover. High plant employment growth increases churning and separation but reduces hiring in the next year. Also controlled are average age and education of employees, shares of women and homeowners among employees, foreign ownership, ownership changes, and regional unemployment.     

Entrepreneurship, Economic Risks, and Risk Insurance in the Welfare State: Results with OECD Data 1978–93

We find evidence in the OECD cross-country data to support the Knightian view that non-diversifiable economic risks shape equilibrium entrepreneurship in an occupational choice model. Differential social insurance of entrepreneurial and labor risk is found to be statistically significant and detrimental to entrepreneurship. The crowding-out effect of public production of private goods on entrepreneurship dominates the crowding-in effect of public production of public goods in the OECD data. Weak evidence is found for the proposition that the rate of entrepreneurship is related to the degree of income inequality and to the union power in the economy. The results also suggest that in countries with low GDP per capita ratio, self-employment is high.